Ride the Tiger

[col2cal]

“The reality of bipolar disorder is hard to fathom: five and a half million Americans have been diagnosed with the disorder and yet so little is known about how the illness manifests itself in our brains. Coming April 13, 2016 from Detroit Public Television (DPTV) and airing on PBS stations nationwide is Ride the Tiger, a one-hour documentary that tells the story of highly accomplished individuals—congressmen, attorneys, pastors, authors, and stay-at-home moms, who have been diagnosed as bipolar.”
The full episode of the documentary can be viewed here now: http://www.pbs.org/ride-the-tiger/home/

Famous people with bipolar disorder, in addition to those seen in this video, include Demi Lovato, Jane Pauley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Vivien Leigh, Carrie Fisher, Amy Winehouse, WInston Churchill, Vincent Van Gogh, Ben Stiller, Richard Dreyfuss, Jim Carrey, Robin Williams, … But they are a tiny fraction of the 5.5 Million Americans who suffer now from this (lifelong) disorder. Most unknown people suffer immensely, quietly or in public.
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/famous-people-celebrities-bipolar/
http://www.commdiginews.com/health-science/health/five-celebrities-besides-robin-williams-with-bipolar-disorder-23601/

The statement in this video by the former director of NIMH, Dr. Thomas Insel, is quite telling, that if the neurosurgical technology has advanced as much as the cell phone technology, the national mental health situation will finally be in the 21st century. But it is still in the ‘stone age’. The ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) was used from the 1940s, and is still a most effective technique in treating severe depression for many patients. As you know, Transistor was invented in 1947 at Bell Labs (so back then there was no transistor radio, not to mention TV and computer). The cellphone technology over the last decade made lots and lots of money for many companies and for many people, but the improved quality of lives for the millions and millions of mental health patients can not produce that much wealth or jobs, and there lies this dilemma. The ‘stone age’ technology ECT is still the final resort for many severe depression patients. Now medical students hear that the next greatest advancement in medicine will come in the mental health.

Ride The Tiger: Documentary Aims to Raise Awareness of Bipolar Disorder
http://neurosciencenews.com/ride-the-tiger-bipolar-documentary-3985/
http://www.pbs.org/ride-the-tiger/home/

[saffysmum]

@col2cal thank you for posting this. I’ve passed along this post to a friend who has found herself struggling with this situation in her marriage. She is looking forward to the documentary and hopefully gleaning some insight as she has not had much luck with her husband’s physicians in getting the answers she feels she needs.

[compmom]

A distinction needs to be made between the different types of bipolar, which is relevant to treatment. Lithium does a lot for bipolar 1.

[col2cal]

@saffysmum You are welcome. Hope your friend find this info useful. You might also direct her to this link where the bipolar patients express their regrets and guilts over their past manic episodes – some even say they prefer to stay in that state, afraid of the terrible feeling of depression and guilt that comes afterwards – thus the title “Ride the Tiger”, which means “stuck in a difficult position with no way out, or riding on the back of a tiger and you cannot get off.”

http://www.psychforums.com/bipolar/topic105674.html [This link worked before, but now it refuses my connection. But there were many very helpful comments, helpful for understanding how they feel while manic and the guilt afterwards. I found a few of those comments from cache and I copy them below. This link may come alive again.] [After copying down some comments from cache, I now find that the link is alive again. But I will leave these comments here anyway just in case the link gets broken again.]

Title: “Feelings of guilt over past manic episodes…” http://www.psychforums.com/bipolar/topic105674.html
“It makes me want to use drugs or drink or cut or anything to escape the memories of my manic episodes. They are very unsettling to those who witness them and to myself. Shame, fear of relapse and embarrassment fill my mind. I see some of these people from time to time which leaves me angry and self-pitying for days. How do you forgive yourself for some of this crap. This has been bothering me a lot lately.
Bipolar II”

“My manic episodes were not as severe as I have seen some could be, but when I think about them, they still bother me. I just have to tell myself to move on or I end up hating myself. And I try to not do the same things again.
Dx- Bipolar 2, anxiety, rapid cycler Citalopram 20mg, Mommy of 3, wife, sister, daughter”

“I cringe when I think of some of the things I have done and said while manic.
I have started so many fights while manic I’m quite unsure how I don’t have a criminal record. I have also been very risky with drug and when off with guys I don’t even know when I’ve been drunk. I have also spent thousands of pounds and I one point became homeless and started steeling to survive.
Like I say, I unsure how I have don’t have a criminal record.
Running around, not eating, thinking I’m the new Jesus; god has sent me here to save the world.
I’m embarrassed, guilty and disappointed with myself.
Just writing it out in the post makes me cringe.
Schizoaffective disorder”

“Just seeing the title of this thread made me send an e-mail to someone who unfriended me on Facebook because of something I did while hypo. Which felt great (to me) and made sense (to me) at the time. Except when the hypomania ended, and I thought about what I did, I realised why he unfriended me and cringed. Sent an apology, not expecting anything in return, but I felt I had to say sorry.”

“I’ve got this complex too. It’s like I’m self-punishing myself for acting foolishly in the past. This is the time when the depression starts to roll in, and I have to imagine the future rather than the past.
Some relationships will never be the same, and I’ve learned that the best thing to do in the future is avoid printed communications with friends. I seem to kind of blow up when manic and have the desire to ‘tell it like I see it.’ This doesn’t leave people too happy when I criticize them.
It’s hard not to ruminate over past actions, but It’s not your personal job to judge and punish yourself for them. Your job is to move positively forward.”

“I love my manic episode… I wish they came around more often.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally batsh!t crazy when they happen… but I fee on top of the world.
It’s the only time in my life that I really feel untouchable and in control… even though I’m obviously NOT in control of anything…
Still…
I know it’s not the best place for me mentally and all…
But I don’t feel bad about the past. It happened… it’s over… can’t change it.
Sure, I ruined some lives… but it didn’t have to be that way, really. I don’t entirely blame myself.
I burned a lot of bridges and I had a lot of fun.
I’m not proud of it, but I can’t ever feel regret for it.
For me, mania is like a high… I’m addicted to it.
xXSmileXx”

“I feel really guilty about some of my past behavour when manic and also really ashamed. not all of it - some was a blast, but some stuff I did I am so ashamed of. You re def not alone with this. How to forgive yourself I am not sure except to reinforce with yourself that you were ill and this is not something you chose to do deliberately.
Hugs”

“I don’t get full blown mania, but the things I do and say while hypomanic really do fill me with regret. I say and do things that are completely out of character, and embarrass myself and hurt people as well. It’s definitely something that is really hard and makes me so fearful of being hypomanic again. I really struggle trying to explain to people my remorse, and it makes it hard for them to understand whether I am truly being me or when I’m just saying things because I am hypomanic. I also punish myself for the things I do while manic. For me sometimes that’s the worst part of bipolar, I hate the regret following those episodes.”

“My best friend wouldn’t accept my apology for how I behaved when I was manic. He simply just tried to stress that It was something out of my control. “Its wasn’t your fault” he said, “it was out of your control” something along those lines. I’d like to believe that and just get over it that way.”

“If it’s any comfort I think most of us have felt shame. I aggressively pursued a guy I was attracted to a while back. We both were flirting. When I found out later he had a girlfriend it got nasty. I called him several times and sent him angry emails. He finally told me to get lost. I apologized days later. I’ve seen him a couple times since then. We both live in the same area. He always looks nervous. But I know that he knows I’m very sorry. He also knows I have bipolar disorder.
Shrug. It sucks. It sucks a lot. But there’s only so much you can do. Just try to forgive yourself. We’ve all been there.”

— there are many more comments, all very helpful to understand what they go through and how the feel during and after the episode …

[saffysmum]

@col2cal thank you for circling back with the additional information. I will be certain to pass it along.

[col2cal]

@compmom Thanks for the clarification. I am not a psychiatrist, but have S who is bipolar-I. I learned that bipolar-II moves between hypomanic and severe depression; and bipolar-I moves between a full-blown manic episode and severe depression. I also learned that bipolar-I (for mind, brain) is similar to diabetic-I (for body) where diabetic-I dies within days without insulin, and bipolar-I will surely fall into full-blown manic episodes without proper medication.

[col2cal]

Some Infographics & Fact Sheets: https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Infographics-Fact-Sheets

66.5 Million American adults (with anxiety, depression, bipolar or schizophrenia) is 27% of the 245 Million adult population in America, which is more than the entire population of the states New York (19.75M), California (38.8M) and Washington (7.1M) combined.

42 Million American adults have anxiety; 16 Million American adults have depression; 6.1 Million American adults have bipolar disorder; and 2.4 Million American adults have schizophrenia. Three quarters of all chronic mental illness begin by age 24.

50% of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14 and 75% by age 24. Nearly 50% of youth aged 8-15
didn’t receive mental health services in the previous year. Nearly 60% of adults with a mental illness didn’t receive mental health services in the previous year.
https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Infographics-Fact-Sheets

[compmom]

col2cal, I have one with bipolar 1 “with psychotic features” (sudden onset at age 17) and, ironically, one with type 1 diabetes (onset at age 4). It is unbearably frustrating that no one knows anything about type 1 diabetes, but I’ll leave that for another day. I think there is similar misunderstanding of bipolar 1. (Not sure there is enough insight during an episode to result in guilt, for one thing.)

People throw these words around too much, and the term “bipolar” really isn’t taken seriously. I actually think we should return to “manic depressive” for bipolar 1. My father died of it (suicide), and oddly, I also had a stepfather who spent a lot of time in hospitals, ran for governor while manic, etc. Great, colorful guy who missed out on contemporary treatments.

Lithium plus antidepressant have done wonders for my daughter. It took a few years to get there, and things were sometimes dicey. But for anyone reading this, there is definitely hope. She is the most insightful, funny, hard-working and generous person I know

[col2cal]

http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/01/28/mental-health-activist-packs-sudler/

Kay Redfield Jamison, prominent mental health activist and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, talked about her decadeslong personal battle with bipolar disorder, the difficulties associated with mental illness, its relationship to gun violence in the United States and its romanticization as an enhancer of creativity.
“Many students now are treated for this problem, not always adequately,” she said. “It varies a lot from college to college but there’s just been a huge demand on student health services, even in the best of places.”
Although Jamison stressed that recent scientific progress has made many of these diseases very treatable, she identified a gap between scientific and clinical knowledge of the conditions and community perception of the disorders.
Jamison described her own experience with mental illness, explaining that she did not start taking medication for her condition until years after she first became psychotically ill as a high school senior. As a result, she said, she had become “ravingly manic” within a few years of joining the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles in 1974.
Jamison characterized her early mania as sometimes giving her great pleasure and endowing her with creative abilities. She said she became reluctant to continue taking her prescribed medication because it cut into these possibilities and produced painful side effects.
“It took me far too long to realize that lost years and relationships cannot be recovered. The damage done to oneself and others cannot always be put right again,” she said.

Even with a quite severe condition, a student can complete the demanding college coursework successfully, if the college is equipped with resources and is flexible enough to coordinate the responses with family to provide a most effective support …
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19395631/#Comment_19395631

I hope I’m not oversharing here, but maybe by describing my own experience I can shed some light on the spectrum of resources available at Yale. I used mental health in my senior year, as my anxiety (which had been diagnosed for a decade, after I tried to jump out a window as a preteen and was taken to the ER), alcoholism and mood got out of hand. During my senior year, I was diagnosed with alcohol abuse disorder, BPD (which clinicians have since said I don’t have, but I guess my depressions have borderline features) and “mood disorder.” I was assigned a social worker because it was contemplated that my alcohol issues were dampening my mood, but within a few sessions it was obvious that my mood was in a very precarious place and that we really needed to focus on that because it was clearly a life or death issue. So I was prescribed antidepressants, and within a week, attempted suicide. Yale has an on call psychiatrist 24/7, so I called the acute care line, freaking out. The doctor told me to come in, told me that I seemed manic, and that he had no choice but to involuntarily hospitalize me.

I was hospitalized three times at Yale-New Haven during my senior year, twice involuntarily and once voluntarily (when I was so depressed and was desperate to try new medication because I thought I would die otherwise). After a psychotic manic episode that landed me in the ward for 2.5 weeks involuntarily, Yale’s mental health administration told me that I needed to take time off. All of that said, Yale did let me return to classes after my other hospitalizations (although a family member had to stay with me in New Haven), and the university worked with my family to find the correct time off solution that worked with my health insurance and my visa.

I hope this isn’t too much. I know that I probably sat right at extreme end of mental health at Yale, but even though my bipolar (or schizoaffective or whatever doctors want to call it) only really came on during my senior year, I think I could have benefited from it for other reasons. You don’t need to be psychotic or suicidal to see a therapist. You don’t even need to be depressed or anxious. Seeing someone is a hard thing to do, but it can help with so many issues going on in your life.

For anyone reading this and struggling with mental health issues, I really want to say it does get better. A year and a half ago, I was lying in my bed all day, crawling across the ground in my suite because I didn’t have the energy to stand, dreaming of dying, unable to recognize the faces of my friends because my cognitive function was so impaired by my depression. Now, I’ve got an ivy league degree with latin honors in hand, a banking job paying me a six figure salary a year out of college, and a zeal for life that I thought I’d never feel again. Sure, I was hospitalized for psychosis and mania for almost a month earlier this year after a med reduction. Things like that happen. But on the whole, I feel like I’ve got my life back. I can live again.

The understanding and knowledge of the college administrators and support staff about the types of illness and their symptomatic manifestations, and the knowledge and skill to effectively handle the crises with the best outcome in mind for the student is crucial for the success My s’s bipolar-I manic episode led him to incarceration at the hands of the university administration. Because the current US law shackles the parents’ hands in dealing with the manic crises, it is even more crucial that the university officials exercise flexibility and good judgement to involve families if/when the situation calls for, for the best interest of students, even when the student did not want it.

[col2cal]

“Ride the Tiger” is on PBS right now – April 13, 10:00-10:50PM EST